Stopping at McDonald's

Stopping at McDonald’s is my favorite part of a road trip. Yet if you said to me in the city, “Let’s go to McDonald’s,” I’d think that is the grossest proposition. McDonald’s “restaurants” in cities typically are dirty and unhappy. But on an outstretched lonely plane of highway, they are beacons of light and hope. They are rest havens of cleanliness, tranquility and homogeneity.

In Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollack describes it best when he says that fast food was not junk food when he was growing up. The same is true with me. It was actually considered a loving act, a wonderful treat when my parents gave me two bucks to go down to Burger King with my friends. We’d all pile in to the immovable booth with our burgers and fries, and in that sanctuary of hard plastic, we’d giggle our way through childhood. Therefore, fast food always holds a place in my heart; it reminds me of my youth.

Little by little, the foods of my yesteryear are being chipped away from my daily existence: white bread is bad for me, sugar is bad for me, drinking water from the tap without some sort of filtration is bad for me. Now even whole wheat and rye (gluten) are being phased out of my diet by nutrition experts. But I stand my ground on white rice. I won’t convert to brown rice, no matter how good it is for me. White rice reminds me of my mother’s cooking and the Cuban restaurants I grew up with, and I won’t be stripped of the last vestiges of my youth.

I know McDonald’s is bad for me. (Like I said, I read Pollack’s book.) And I know that despite their fancy and horribly misguided “All Natural” packaging, I’m eating highly, highly processed beef from poorly, poorly treated cows.

But still, the saltiness of the crisp fries, the softness of the bun, the cold sugar rush from the soda––I find all of it so comforting; and when I’m spiritually lost and physically burned out on the road, the golden arches signify home.

Liberate the Tree

Returning from Taos and with the fire of the Rio Grande in my heart, I was determined to liberate the tree in my back yard.

My “yard” is actually an asphalt driveway with a trash shed. Off to the side stands a thin, malnourished tree of no distinct leaf variety I can determine. When the owners of this property had the idea to tar over this entire 100-s.f. plot of land, they also decided to tar in the base of the tree. Adding insult to injury, they then positioned the apartment building’s garbage cans beneath the tree.

As a result of careless neighbors and strong winds, the garbage doesn’t always end up in the bins, but instead gets littered at the base of the tree. When I moved here in winter, the sight of the garbage-filled tree immediately irked me, but it was too cold and inhospitable to go outside and work in the yard to clean it up. And it would indeed be work. That garbage had been accumulating there for months, if not years.

On the first warm day of spring, I moved those garbage cans into the trash shed––which is where they belong, not at the base of a tree. Then I got to work on reviving the tree. Short of renting a jackhammer to break up the asphalt surrounding it, I swept the area free of litter and tried my best to aerate its dirt-covered roots (with a spade).

I pulled up fresh and rotting weeds, and handpicked every minute piece of garbage that codified itself in my outdoor living space. After spreading red cedar mulch around the chain-link fence perimeter, I turned my attention to giving the tree a new lease on life. I padded its base with a fluffy, healthy padding of mulch and on its naked branches, I hung a bird feeder.

Sparrows now flutter and peck in the tree’s branches, and the other day, a cardinal stopped by for a perch. Meager and perhaps ill-fated, the tree is budding leaves today. What a wild life.

Boston Public Library

When I first moved to Boston, I couldn’t stop comparing the city to New York. I was unconscious of doing it; the way obsessed Red Sox fans continuously wear their team’s jersey even when it’s not baseball season.

Of course in my mind, Boston didn’t measure up. But how could it? New York is “home” to me, not just a city. I didn’t grow up in Manhattan as a child, but I did as an adult. And while many see filthy, crowded, noisy streets, I see sacred spaces in which I learned some very hard life lessons that made me who I am today.

Over time, however, I came to see that no city could ever compare to New York because of my emotional connection. Therefore, like a switch turning on a light bulb, I started to see Boston in a new light. And one thing that shines so brightly for me is the Boston Public Library.

When I took the free tour, the docent wouldn’t stop comparing the BPL to the New York Public Library. This made me chuckle. But I found it absurd when he kept denigrating the NYPL. Clearly, he didn’t know much about the New York institution and how much value it contributes––not only to New York City residents, but to the world.

Nevertheless, I have grown to love the BPL for something so much more than its history, art and architecture: I love the “public” aspect of its reading room.

In the room gathers the power of the brain; strangers sit together in one room to read, write, calculate, research, think––whatever everyone is doing in silence. In the reading room, it’s like a giant think tank with no outside distraction and we are all in this one space free of charge.

My Toyota Prius

I cheated on my Prius with an SUV at the Hertz Rental Counter on vacation last week. Yes, of course the SUV’s gas mileage wasn’t as good as my intelligent little hybrid, and filling up, my eyes flew open when the pump’s Amount Paid meter didn’t stop but kept right on ticking.

But climbing into the gleaming white Ford Escape, I couldn’t be happier. It felt good to be up riding high; with my Prius, I’m at eye level with every car passing me. And the ride over backroads in the high country was soundless and comfortable in the well-fortified truck; whereas on the highway, my Prius is a wind tunnel of sound and I feel every little pebble we run over on the road.

Still, I love my Prius. She’s my first car.

I bought her used from an elderly couple in San Diego. They were downsizing and didn’t have a need for the car so they listed it on CraigsList. I immediately sensed that the sellers weren’t so much looking for a buyer––as they were looking for the right home for their car. So I signaled my interest beyond the financial transaction: I would take care of their car.

It’s been the best six years since my Prius came into my life. As epic road warriors, we have combed over varying levels of this country: from 282 feet below sea level (Death Valley) to the 11,312-foot Monarch Pass on the Continental Divide in Colorado. Every now and then, we mail a photo of ourselves (usually outside of a National Park) to the couple who sold me the car.

One of my favorite things to do in this world––I can list it as a hobby––is to just get in my car and drive. On vast stretches of highway, I usually pat the dashboard and say: “I may not be your birth mother, but I’m your Mama now.” She knows it, and my Prius responds with a little rev in her engine.